Can you believe we have less than a week left here? Suck.
We got up much earlier than usual as we had a big day planned. We packed up our things, while running the dryer twice for some of the damp clothes. I logged on one last time to check email and ICQd a bit with Vic and Mitch from 6,000 miles away. :) I also discovered that the number Kelly had given us was a call phone; any number with 090 in front of it is a cell number. I guess the ryokan phone won't let us call cell phones. :/
We packed up and I forgot to take a picture as we left the room. :( Downstairs we checked out of the hotel, and I asked the otoosan, who is always terribly nice, how much the phone bill was. As it turns out, it was almost 5000 yen; that first phone call was a doozy after all. Yuck. The interesting thing was he added the whole thing up on an abacus, despite a calculator being in plain view!
We rushed our way to the station, since it was windy and cold. Molly is convinced the Japanese are insane. They're real slaves to fashion; women will wear bitty skirts in freezing weather pretty regularly. Plus high, uncomfortable boots that make them walk really funny (" the praying mantis walk" we've dubbed it). We got a few of the cheese rolls at the panya on the ground floor of the station, but refrained from getting too many things as we have a lot of food in a little bag we're carrying around. We got reserved tickets on the shinkansen to Himeji, that wouldn't leave for another 45 minutes at 10:30. Cloyce asked me a favor to get a Subway cup (the picture is illegible, he says) so right at 10AM, I raced up to the Isetan to get one. The store had just opened and I rode the escalators up to the 9th floor. As I walked in, and at the top of EVERY escalator, two people stood on either side and bowed and said, "ohayoo gozaimasu, irrashaimase!" ("good morning, welcome!"). Every floor up to 9. It was really cool! I stopped off at Subway and got a drink to get the cup, then ran back down to where Molly was waiting for the train. So Cloyce, I got the cup. :)
We rode the shinkansen 50 minutes to Himeji, which is a few stops west of Shin-Osaka station. There we walked up and down several sets of stairs (the suitcase is getting lighter; at least I'm getting stronger! That thing weighs a ton) to the central exit where the signs pointed out Himeji Castle in english. To the left of the exit (facing it), near the ticket reservation office, we found a HUGE locker for 600 yen, that I managed to put the suitcase in without much effort at all. The ones to the right of the exit are the same price, only smaller. It pays to look around. We fit the suitcase and both of our backpacks in it. We did have to get another locker for our smaller packages and food, however. Directly out of the station is the road up to Himeji. It's about a 15-20 minute walk, but it's quick and painless. We followed the road up, the wind whipping as as we walked. The GPS showed us approximately half a mile from Cloyce's "himejijo" waypoint when we started. As we got closer, the wind knocked over a few bikes, and one of a girl's mittens went flying out of the basket of one. Molly chased it down and put both mittens and the bike lock that fell with them back in the basket. She did her good deed for the day. :)
Himeji-jo is a very, very picturesque castle. Picture what you would think as the epitome of an example of a Japanese castle, and that's Himejijo. It has a large park in front of it, and past the ticket counter is the main wall. As you walk around Nijojo, twice you'll have to take off your shoes; once to enter the inner wall, and once to enter the castle itself. The inner wall is a 
long, winding passage that leads around almost up to the castle. Inside are a number of 8-mat tatami rooms (although now they're bare floor) and lots of "stone-throwing holes", places where stones or boiling water could be dumped on enemies below. Rifles or arrows could also be fired through them. The slippers they give you are way too small; I seem to remember I was given a larger pair once, but this time they weren't available. We minced our way through, taking extra care on the three steep 
staircases, and 
Molly took a few pictures of Princess Sen's room at the far end. In that room, there are two mannequins that look like Sen and her attendant, and it's also the only one with tatami in it. There were three old tourist Japanese there, and one old lady literally shoved Molly out of the way to get a view of that room! Molly was rightfully annoyed. We raced to get ahead of them, put our shoes back on at the wall exit, and walked toward the castle. Molly kept mumbling about the annoying old woman. "I wouldn't give my seat up for her!" she said, angrily.
We approached the castle, passing through a tiny door where even Molly had to duck her head. As she stood in it for a picture, the wind picked up and she was almost
blown away! As we continued on, we visited the harakiri maru, the Suicide circle. They think this was likely where people committed ceremonial suicide, and the well nearby was for washing the severed heads. It was a little creepy. We walked back up the steps and to the front of the castle.
The wind was still whipping away, but we got some good pictures of the
castle, then headed inside, removing our shoes again. A sign in English said "No slippers OK", so I chose to go without them this time. There are some nifty historical items in Himejijo, such as scrolls, pictures, maps, and even swords. It's 6 stories high, and to get to the top you must take many sets of *extremely steep* stairs. At the top, there's a small shrine, a guest book we signed, and a stamp to use on the back of your tour guide brochure (which they gave to us at the entrance, in English). We got the stamp, then went carefully back down the stairs. Molly was a little freaked going back down, as the stairs look even steeper and higher going the other way. There are some artifacts from when they rebuilt the castle in the 50's and 60's that they found near the exit in the walls. A 
scale model of what the castle grounds looked like is also there, covered in dust bunnies; they probably never dust it for fear of breaking something! We put our shoes back on and walked back out of the castle, snapping a few more pictures along the way. Molly kept finding a better and better 
picture, so she took a TON. :)
Lunch was next on our mind as we walked back to the train station. We passed a number of restaurants on the way, none of which had anything she could eat. Down in the underground, we still weren't able to find a restaurant with very much edible. We walked in to the depaato basement in search of something, anything, and preferably tofu. There were dozens of counters, all selling any number of items, but none seemed to be selling anything vegetarian. All the bentoo had meat, and most of even the vegetable looking items seemed to have meat as well. We finally found a panya where they had an egg pita sandwich with nothing else in it! We were amazed. We bought that and a few bread items for her, plus a pack of shumai (round dumplings) and gyoza (long dumplings) for me. We still had our big water so we needed to drink that. We got our stuff out of our lockers, then waited in a big line for tickets to Shin-osaka station on a train leaving in 15 minutes. Up the big staircases we went, finding our train, and hopping on for the short 35 minute ride to Shin-Osaka. We hungrily snarfed our food, eating some of the snacks we were carrying as well. It's only 40 miles to Shin-Osaka, with three stops along the way. We hit
165 at one point (the picture is only 161)! That was pretty cool. As the GPS told us the train was getting close, we gathered our things. The announcement came on that we were arriving at Shin-Osaka, and we were already on our way to the exit. The train stopped, the doors opened, and we stepped out into Shin-Osaka, tummies full, but ready to dump our things.